Mermaids And The Vampires Who Love Them

20. AND NOW I'M A TOILET

After leaving Crumpet's office, I head back toward the beach, but I hear explosions and laughter emanating from the cafeteria. I must've missed the rest of the math class! I know this isn't like the universe feeling sorry for me and giving me a break, but it is a small consolation for being utterly mortified in front of my father.

I hurry across the courtyard toward the cafeteria to find my cabin mates. Maybe one of them will have an idea about how to break the unbreakable fairy spell, or at least know what will happen if I try to walk through it.

There's a new golden Cupid statue in the courtyard. It's way better than the pastels we did in Life Drawing and Sculpture class. Must've come from the advanced art class. The Cupid figure holds a bow and arrow poised and ready to fly at the statue of The Glorious Goddess Gaia that's always been there.

The minute I step into the cafeteria, I have to duck to avoid being hit by a raw meatball that splats on the door to the gym across the hall. It's chaos in here. Of course, I've heard of food fights, but apparently, at West Marin Heights, a food fight involves food directly in combat with other food—while the students, walls, floor, and even the ceiling are collateral damage.

There are about thirty students inside the cafeteria. A group of gods is safely protected by some kind of magical barrier. The vampires, fairies, and werewolves are hiding under the tables, laughing and pointing at the midair explosions of food, except for Pickles, who's awhirl in the center of the caf, swirling her wand in the air and cursing in a way that I am reasonably sure is prohibited by the F.G. Training Manual. A pile of raw meat (the werewolves love the stuff) forms itself into balls, which launch into the air and collide with fairy cakes, bottles of blood, kelp smoothies, hot dogs, pizza, and goblets of ambrosia. The combatants burst apart, leaving frosting, cake, tiny sugared unicorns, meat, and blood everywhere. It looks like a crime scene.

I grab a tray from a cart near the door and use it to block the onslaught as I sprint across the room, yelling as loud as I can, "I wish the food would stop fighting!"

All at once, the food hangs for a second in midair, trembles, then falls to the floor with horrible sounds of squelching and shattering. Everyone boos. It smells like the boardwalk at the end of a hot summer's day when the trash cans are overflowing with half-eaten hot dogs, food wrappers, and flies.

"Thank you, Wave. I don't know how this happened," Pickles says. "All I was trying to do was make some special meat cupcakes for Thunder."

"That's okay, Pickles. I wish this were all cleaned up."

Pickles waves her wand, and now half the room is clean. She tries to clean the rest. Beads of sweat form on her forehead.

"What's up, Pickles?"

"I don't know. Something is wrong. Oh, no!"

"What? Pickles, what's wrong?"

"I might have the fairy flu." She sneezes sparkles of fairy dust. "Oh, sorry," she says, picking up an ambrosia-soaked napkin from the table.

Lily-Bella waves her wand; a clean, white handkerchief appears. "Here you go, Hon."

"Thanks." Pickles blows her nose.

"What's the fairy flu?" I say.

"It's very rare, but it kind of makes sense," Pickles says. She glances at Fintan and then at her flip-flopped feet.

"How do you get the fairy flu, Pickles?" asks Fintan.

"Well ..."

"Maybe it's something embarrassing," I say. "Like a girl thing that she doesn't want to announce to half the school. I wish you didn't have the fairy flu."